The Department of Work and Pensions has been accused of wasting taxpayer’s money after they paid £315,000 for a single Gogglebox advert.
A Freedom of Information request submitted by Alex Tiffin using the website WhatDoTheyKnow.com revealed the production company of the Channel 4 programme was paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for their work with DWP.
The governmental department defended the outlay saying it is an “effective way to communicate with workers”, but Shadow minister Laura Pidcock has hit back at the expense, saying the payment was “an astonishing waste of taxpayers’ money”.
She added: “Across the country families are struggling thanks to Universal Credit and the benefit freeze.
“They will rightly be fuming when they find out the Department for Work and Pensions are throwing away money like this, but it really does not surprise me at all.”
Last month it was revealed that some 200,000 Brits have been pushed into poverty due to DWP cutbacks.
The freeze on benefits started its fourth year in a row on April 8 after MPs signed off cost-cutting sanctions.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said hundreds of thousands of people had been pushed into poverty by the first three years of the freeze, half of whom are children.